Live soccer relays with Electro-Voice and DYNACORD

All over Germany, fans gathered last month in front of giant screens to follow the progress of the national soccer team in the Euro 2012 competition

Both inside and outside the stadiums, equipment from Bosch Communications Systems set the tone

At a single fan festival in Dresden, over 12,000 celebrated with Electro-Voice and DYNACORD

Last month, all Germany was gripped with football fever. In addition to record TV ratings, the fans who gathered in vast numbers in front of giant screens all over the country to watch live relays of its performances underlined the popularity of the German national team. In arenas, including the stadiums in Kiev and Lviv where the matches were being contested, as well as at football parties all over Germany, sound reinforcement from Bosch Communications Systems provided the competition with superlative acoustic support – whatever the size of the gathering.

In Dresden, the excitement was delivered in XXL format. Every time trainer Jogi Löw’s team took to the field, around 12,000 fans of the beautiful game assembled at the Königsufer on the banks of the Elbe to follow the action. To get them really geed up, the organizers (the City of Dresden and the company that produces the city’s film nights) hired the team from Sound Light Event, Dresden, to provide the sound reinforcement. “There were two major hurdles here to contend with,” reports Dirk Schiemenz, the managing director of the Saxon rental company. “One was the size of the area to be covered and the other the nature of the signal, the TV commentary, itself, in which the level of background noise is generally extremely high and has to be controlled carefully.” This commentary, however, infused as it invariably is with contagious enthusiasm, has an invaluable contribution to make to the overall experience. For this reason, the level of intelligibility – not only in Dresden but wherever fans gathered in front of the giant screens – was of decisive importance. To provide the football-crazy fans in Dresden with optimum coverage, the team led by Schiemenz opted for DYNACORD COBRA 2 systems to supply near and side fill, two XLVC line arrays from Electro-Voice with XLE 181 elements flown from the stage roof, and PWH and V17 bass cabinets from DYNACORD. Amplification was delivered by P3000RL and TG7 power amplifiers from Electro-Voice as well as LX2200 power amplifiers from DYNACORD. As stage monitors, SxA360 powered loudspeakers were used. Digital signal processing was provided by a DSP 244 and the entire system was controlled and supervised using IRIS-Net software. The lavishness of the investment was already evident in the run-up to the event, as the entire installation – including the video wall, cameras and video playback equipment as well as the sound systems – took three days to set up. “We put our faith in Electro-Voice and DYNACORD years ago and it’s a decision we have never once regretted,” affirms Schiemenz. “The positive feedback from the event organizers further vindicated our choice.”

Johannes Moeck of Badensound is a past master of the giant screen discipline, this being far from the first time the Renchen-based company has provided soccer fans following World Cup and Euro action in cities around Germany with a goose-bump experience. During the final rounds of this year’s tournament in Poland and Ukraine, Badensound handled the sound reinforcement for two events: one attended by 10,000 fans in Achern and a second in Offenburg, where the capacity was 7,000. The greatest challenge in each case, says Moeck, was to control the level of sound emissions: “In Offenburg, the event was held in the middle of the city, and in Achern, on the edge of a housing estate. Our job was to ensure sound pressure levels were high enough in the areas where the fans had gathered to maximize their enjoyment without escaping sound infringing local byelaws. We did this by installing line-arrays on each side of the giant screens and adding decentralized delay lines we could switch on or off depending upon the number of fans present. The subwoofers were configured to create cardioid bass arrays with their levels meticulously controlled in order to achieve a directional coverage pattern even in the low frequency range. In this way, we were able to ensure that virtually no disturbing low frequency sound spilled into nearby residential areas.” For these events, Badensound deployed DYNACORD V17, VM15, D12-3 and CXM15 cabinets powered by DYNACORD H5000 amps with integrated RCM26 modules. “In my opinion, they’re the world’s best power amplifiers,” states Moeck. “They offer you all the remote functionality you could wish for, they’re reliable and, with the added benefit of the FIR settings provided, deliver top quality sound.” In the FOH position, a CMS 1600-3 mixer was used.

In the lower Bavarian town of Burghausen, the gathering was somewhat smaller but the 2,700 fans who did assemble in front of the giant screen were provided with a memorable experience. Here the event was handled by the team from MSE Tontechnik led by Johannes Schilling. Like his colleagues, Schilling cited “achieving the highest possible level of intelligibility” as the number one objective of the production. Four Electro-Voice XI1152A/64F loudspeakers flanked by four Electro-Voice Xsubs powered by MSE TG7 power amplifiers from Electro-Voice delivered the sound on this occasion. Here, too, throughout the final rounds, as on previous occasions, the response from fans and organizers alike was “uniformly positive”. “We have never had any dropouts,” reports Schilling. “The equipment invariably proves reliable, which is something our customers greatly appreciate.”

At Munich Airport, too, between Terminals 1 and 2, sound systems from DYNACORD and Electro-Voice relayed the commentary as hundreds of travellers at a time gathered in front of the giant screens to find out how the competition was progressing. Magic Event- und Medientechnik of Olching were responsible for this production and relied on an XLVC line array from Electro-Voice, comprising eight XLD281 elements per side, Xsubs, and both TG5 and TG7 power amplifiers.

To obviate the risk of bad weather spoiling the fun, the authorities in Straubing had moved the giant screens indoors to the local trade fair center, which has a capacity of 3,000 visitors. Despite the problematic acoustics in many parts of this venue, Michael Wittenzellner, the managing director of StereoMike Veranstaltungstechnik, was able to achieve a high level of intelligibility by using two DYNACORD COBRA Tops and DYNACORD COBRA Far elements placed on either side of the screen and three delay lines composed of CXM15 cabinets.